10pc pay rise could tempt half of workers abroad

One in two employees is open to the idea of taking a job overseas in exchange
for a 10 per cent increase in pay, research has found

Employees in Mexico are most likely to move abroad for a jobPhoto: 1Apix / Alamy

By Leah Hyslop

11:34AM GMT 09 Feb 2012

Nearly 13,000 workers from 24 different countries were quizzed by market research company Ipsos to find out what their attitudes were to relocation.

When asked if they would consider a full-time job in a foreign country for between two and three years, with a minimum 10 per cent pay increase, two in ten (19 per cent) said they were “very likely” to accept the posting, while three in ten (30 per cent) were “somewhat likely”.

Interestingly, although 31 per cent of expats interviewed said a higher salary would entice them to take a post abroad, even more (35 per cent) said they would be chiefly attracted by the guarantee they could return to their current post after two years.

A similarly high number, 30 per cent, said that their top motivation would be return tickets to visit home, while 29 per cent said accepting the offer could hinge on if they were given paid language training.

Keren Gottfried, a research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs, said the findings suggested that there was "both an openess to, and an appetite for, working abroad" – but that companies had to be careful they were offering the right benefits package.

“Businesses are more globalised than ever before and there is a need to move more and more people around,” she said. “It is important to get the details right, so that people are willing to move.”

They survey also revealed which nationalities were happiest to consider a post abroad, with over a third of employees in Mexico saying they were “very likely” to move (34 per cent), followed by Brazil (32 per cent), Russia (31 per cent) and Turkey (31 per cent). Employees in western Europe and the US, by contrast, were far less likely to move overseas.

Ms Gottfried said that that people in developing economies “tended to be more open to different types of working environments”.

"Other research we've carried out showed that telecommuting, or working from home, is also much more common in developing economies than in the West, where people are more entrenched in their ways of working," she explained.

The top reasons for not accepting the proposed transfer abroad were that a 10 per cent rise was insufficient compensation (36 per cent), that workers did not want to be separated from friends or family (30 per cent) or that their partner had a job which would make moving difficult (18 per cent).